


30 Day Johnlock OTP Challenge

by strayMongrel



Series: Johnlock 30 Day OTP Challenge [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, Eventual Smut, M/M, Romance, bottom!John, top!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:40:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strayMongrel/pseuds/strayMongrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 Day OTP Challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1: Holding Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in a while, and this is my first time posting on AO3. I know there's a lot of Johnlock fics out there, but this will be the first one that I'm putting up anywhere for people to read. Every day in this challenge will be as connected as I can possibly get it.

It had been three years since John Watson had last seen that dickhead. No, not just any dickhead. Sherlock Holmes, his best friend. And these three years were going on four. The army doctor had said: “one more miracle” and that miracle was seeming less likely to happen every passing minute.

He had tried moving out of the flat, but every time he put something else into the box, he felt pained, like he was giving up on something. Dr Watson never gave up, so he decided to stop moving out and stick it out for the miracle.

 

Smiling had become a rare thing for John. Nothing much made him happy anymore. Even the occasional call from Lestrade or the patients at the hospital didn't seem to help at all. He would go to either the pub with the Detective Inspector or to surgery, and nothing would help him get over what had happened those three, almost four, years ago. His friend wasn’t the only thing that had died. John Watson’s crutch had as well.

He took the occasional walk, still wrote, but not in a blog. He didn’t want the whole world to see what he was thinking. He wanted privacy again, so he wrote in simple journals, the ones that didn’t even cost a pound. He wrote in the journal every night. It was one simple sentence: “Come home.” After every journal was filled, he would burn the paper book, trying to get rid of what he wrote. His eyes burned with the tears, but he blamed them on the smoke from the fire. Every book that he lit up lifted a weight from his chest, and, even though he cried (it was the smoke, honestly), he couldn’t stop writing in the journals. He enjoyed how he could write hard, soft, or scribble. He felt his emotion leave with every pen stroke, and he could see his feelings in the writing.

He longed to delete his blog, but he didn’t. He didn’t even lock it, make it private. He wasn’t honestly that intune with technology, and he felt that, in case his miracle did happen, he wouldn’t be able to figure out how to fix what he did to the blog. He barely knew how to delete a post. He barely knew how to work his phone!

 

So when his text tone went off, a simple blip, he looked at it over on the kitchen table, a bit confused. No one texted him except Mycroft, and he had stopped that over a year and a half ago. Lestrade called him: “Easier if I’m on the drive.” John had to move his laptop to go get it. It was a bit more effort than he would have liked, but he made himself get up.

_Open the door. I’ve been out here for five minutes, knocking._

He frowned at the text, confused. He hadn’t heard any knocking, and he wasn’t about to go check. It may just be a prank, as he didn’t recognise the number. He closed his phone and went back to his chair. His phone’s time read 22:00 anyway, so he went to turn in.

 

He woke up with a start and found himself listening in on the darkness. Listening to silence. He missed hearing the melancholy violin at the odd hours of the night, missed the odd smells from his friend’s experiments. Sliding out of his covers, John flinched as his feet touched the cold wooden floor. He listened harder, not sure what he was so intent on hearing until the scraping from downstairs came more intently to his attention. The floor creaked as he got up, and the noise downstairs suddenly stopped. John froze in his place, waiting until he heard the noise again, then slid his feet towards the door, not even bothering with socks. He shuffled out into the hall, passing the closed door. He promised himself he would never walk into that room, no matter how rarely it was used when its owner was alive. He stopped at the top of the stairs and listened again. He heard soft whispers with no replies, the scraping again, and a pause.

John waited until the whispers started again before he slowly made his way downstairs. _Third, seventh and final stair creaks..._ He reached the bottom and paused as there was silence again.

“I know, John, I know...”

He froze as the whispers were a bit louder. He recognised that voice. Was he sleeping?

“John, you would kill me if you knew I was here.”

He heard the scraping again.

“You haven’t taken care of my violin. The strings need to be changed, wood polished...”

The soldier moved to the wall and peered around the doorway, seeing the back of a dark coat. _Sherlock...?_

The man moved and put the violin back in the case. “John, I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I wish I could come back.” He put the violin back up into the bookcase’s top shelf, the shelf that John could never reach.

As the dark figure turned around, John hid back behind the wall. His breaths came quick and quiet as he listened to the man walk towards the doorway _. Fuck. Watson, you are an idiot! It shouldn’t matter. This is all a dream, just a dream. Sherlock can’t be alive. He fell from the top of a building. You saw him hit the ground, you felt his pulse. The man cannot be alive._ But, as the stranger walked over the threshold, all of his hesitations and excuses fell away as he saw the man’s face. “Sherlock?!”

The man froze and looked at him, eyes wide as he scanned the soldier’s exhausted body. “No, John, it’s not me. You’re only sleeping.”

“Sleeping, my ass!” His fist connected with the man’s firm stomach before his other fist hit him in the chin.

_If I had to punch that face, I'd avoid the nose and teeth too._

John grit his teeth and punched the man in the nose. “You are the nation’s largest asshole that I know! What were you thinking, leaving me for four years!”

“Three years and seven months, John...” he muttered from behind his hand that held his streaming nose.

“Doesn’t fucking matter, Sherlock! Where the fuck were you?! Why did you leave me for so long?!”

“John... I told you that I left my note. Didn’t you...?”

“I heard you, Sherlock! You left your note with me via phone call!”

The detective frowned, removing his hand from his bloodied nose. “No, John... My note was my cell phone. I left it on top of Bart’s.”

“...The police took it in for evidence.” John wiped his bloody hand on his shirt. “Why was your note in your phone?”

“John!” Sherlock started pacing, ignoring the blood on his lip. “At least Lestrade went through it, right?”

“I’m not sure.”

The detective spun on his heel and strutted towards John. “Not sure? We have to go then!”

“Go? Go where?”  John yelped as Sherlock grabbed his hand to drag him outside.

“Go talk to Lestrade! There’s something important on my phone!”

“Important?” John tried to shake Sherlock’s hand out of his. “What’s so important? Let me change, then!”

“John!” Sherlock’s hand slipped from his as the doctor went upstairs.


	2. Day 2: Cuddling Somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 of the Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all like it. A side note: If I miss a day, check my tumblr ( stray-mongrel.tumblr.com/tagged/30_day_otp_challenge ). If it's not there, I probably was busy, so the challenges will be all pushed back a day.

John walked ahead of the detective. He hadn’t forgiven Sherlock yet, but he didn’t have much of a choice than to let him walk to Scotland Yard to talk to DI Lestrade. The strange man was buried in his phone, tapping out messages to who knows who.

“Sherlock, where did you go for three years?”

“Three years, seven months, John.”

“Whatever, Sherlock. Where did you go?”

“I can’t tell you that, John. Mycroft would have a fit.”

“Since when did that matter to you?”

Sherlock laughed dryly. “It mattered when I,” he suddenly swallowed hard, “needed his help.”

“Why did you need his help? Wait...did he know you were alive?!”

“He did after a few months. I required his help to get through other countries and back into this one, etcetera.”

“What a dick... Why couldn’t I know you were alive? Was I the only one still in the dark about it?”

“No, Lestrade will find out when we arrive at the Yard.”

John frowned. “Sherlock...”

The detective looked at him, confused. “What? Is that not appropriate?”

“No, not at all.” He stared straight ahead at the next lamp post.

After a few moments of silence, Sherlock showed John his phone. A text message glowed on the screen. “ _I’m not dead. Heading over with John now. SH_ ” “Is that better, John?”

The doctor stared at the screen for a second, his eyes adjusting to the sudden bright light. “...I suppose. Lestrade will still have a fit.”

 

And a fit he had.

“Do you know how many bloody cases I’ve went through?! So many that I could’ve used your help on, but you weren’t available! No, because I thought you were dead!”

The detective inspector continued to yell at Sherlock, but Watson tuned him out. He had been expecting the lecture, even one at such volumes. He even shot Sherlock an “I told you so” look.

“Yes, Lestrade. I know. Where’s the evidence from my ‘fall’?” He drew air quotes with his one hand.

“In the evidence locker, like every other case.”

“Is my old cell phone there as well?”

Lestrade frowned. “How should I know? I wasn’t the one overseeing the evidence. I had to escort your body!”

Sherlock suddenly looked uncomfortable. “I’ll...go get it myself.” He quickly stepped from the room, leaving John alone with Lestrade.

“So the dick is back?”

John nodded. “I hit him a few good times when I got the chance.”

“That’s why his nose looks a bit off centre?” Lestrade laughed. “Didja punch him harder for me? I had a few choice words to say, but I forgot them as I saw the real thing myself. Alive... blimey, I thought that would be the end of it.”

A sharp look from John threw the DI off. “Did you not think he was a fake like everyone else did?”

“Nah. The bastard couldn’t fake all of it. He couldn’t have made all of that up.”

“All of what exactly?”

“All of his little tricks. The ‘deduction’ things.” Lestrade waved his hand impatiently. “The point is, he couldn’t have faked all of that, right?”

John nodded his agreement and almost pissed himself as Sherlock banged the door open. “Sherlock, Jesus! Calm down!”

The detective turned on the phone and played back a voice recording. “ _...Three bullets. Three gunmen. Three victims. There's no stopping them now. Unless my people see you jump. You can have me arrested, you can torture me. You can do anything you like with me, but nothing's going to prevent them from pulling the trigger. Your only three friends in the world will die. Unless— … Unless I kill myself and complete your story._ ”

John looked over at Sherlock then Lestrade. They were both staring at the phone with equally blank expressions, though Sherlock’s was filled with the all-too familiar boredom.

“See, Lestrade? Now put that out to all of your little media stations and the papers. I’d like my name cleared as soon as possible so that I may return to work even sooner.”

“Sherlock...” John warned, his fist clenching.

The detective looked at him, eyebrow raised.

The DI looked between the two of them, confused from the lack of context.

The doctor just turned around and walked outside, frowning. Sherlock working again? He had just come back, and the idiot was already planning to work again with no regards to what John was thinking. _Ah, well, that’s how he normally was, remember? Don’t try to romanticise Sherlock Holmes, Watson. He will always be the emotionless dick that he was before he left. Three and a half years won’t change anything._ The soldier sat down on the curb and pressed his hands to his brow. He had hoped that Sherlock would have at least rested before taking on cases again, at least so they had time to catch up on lost time. _Lost time? Listen to yourself. You sound like a smitten teenager._ He saw the expensive boots beside him and that caused him to look up.

“John, you can’t hide yourself from me, so don’t even try.”

Confused, he stood up. “I am not hiding myself from you. I am thinking.”

Sherlock looked out over the street. “Someone told me that it means something when you look sad when you think no one can see you. And that’s what you were doing: looking sad when you think I can’t see you. So, Dr John Hamish Watson, don’t try to hide yourself from me because you’re sad.”

For a moment, he was speechless. He hadn’t expected an emotionless Holmes to say that, least of all Sherlock Holmes. “...Say that again.”

“And if you know that I’m lying to you, you will...skin me, correct?”

John stared at him in disbelief. “Sherlock, stop it.”

“John, I was being truthful.” Sherlock looked back towards the doctor. “I know what it means to look sad when you think I can’t see you.”

He frowned and looked at his hands. “Look... Can we just...go home together? I’m exhausted, and I’m sure you could use the sleep as well.”

The detective gave a small nod and went to hail a cab.

 

The two of them walked up the stairs to their flat, avoiding the third stair because it creaked. Mrs Hudson was probably sleeping, and their earlier fight must have woken her up. Both men didn’t want to risk that again, so they kept entirely quiet until they were secured behind the locked door of 221B.

“Alright, Sherlock... I’m... turning in. Good night.” John made his way back up to his room after hanging his coat. The creak of the stairs behind him hailed Sherlock’s retreat to his old room as well. He was filled with a sense of great happiness, actually filled. The emptiness of the flat was gone and was replaced with a familiar glow. Sherlock’s presence, no matter what insanity came with it, made John’s dreary life brighter, and, as he laid his head down on the pillow, nothing could ever change that.

 

… Until he woke up with a sleeping Sherlock wrapped around his body.


	3. Day 3: Watching a Movie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here you are, guys!

As it turns out, Sherlock couldn’t start working cases until the Head of Scotland Yard actually approved his assistance to Lestrade. So, instead of working like he had wanted to, the detective found himself lying in bed or on the couch or across his chair, legs over the one arm. He sighed loudly and looked at the wall where his graffiti still stained the wall. He grit his teeth and forced a smile at it. The effort to do so just made him sigh louder.

“What is it, Sherlock?” John set down a steaming mug of tea in front of the sighing man.

“Bored.”

He grit his teeth as the repetitive, cliché word scraped at his ears. “You’re bored, eh? Well, how about you rip apart a film, hm? You’ve always enjoyed that, and it will get your mind working at least a little bit.”

“How will it get my mind working?”

“You’ll have to think of reasons to hate the film.”

With a single, short chuckle, Sherlock turned onto his side and sat up on his chair properly until he was slouching in the seat, long legs under the coffee table, crossed at the ankles. “Very well. Put it in.”

John rolled his eyes at the blunt order, but he did as he was asked, picking out a completely random movie from their rather small collection. Turns out, he picked _Great Expectations_ , and he settled in his seat to watch it.

 

The morning he woke up with Sherlock asleep around him was still fresh in his mind, though it was almost a week ago. He had never imagined that Sherlock was much of a cuddler, but even more surprising was the fact that the detective had acted like it wasn’t a big deal to have gotten into bed with a sleeping man to hold him. John had woken him up with a shout, but the detective had merely gripped him tighter. The doctor had to violently push him away so he could get out of the tight hold, but he had only succeeded in falling to the floor and making Sherlock grab all of the blankets in lieu of a warm body.

John tried to wake Sherlock up, but he only managed to get groans of irritation from the sleeping man. He punched him in the shoulder, he shook him, he even tried to pull him out of the bed. He only succeeded halfway before the long legs got tangled in the blankets. “Sherlock!”

 

“John?”

He looked at the detective as if he had woken up. “What is it?”

“If been talking for ten minutes, and you have yet to reply to any of it.”

John looked at the movie. Pip was on screen, so he turned his attention back to Sherlock. “Was I supposed to respond?”

“I asked you a question a while ago. I thought you were thinking on it, but after a few minutes, I realised that you hadn’t been paying attention at all.”

“No, I wasn’t. I was thinking of something else.”

“Such as...? No, wait...” Sherlock’s eyes flicked over John’s body. The doctor was angled away from him, legs pulled in closer, a noticeable crease between his eyes from a frown. “You’re still angry about last Sunday.”

“Not angry, Sherlock.”

The detective looked at him, squinting his eyes as if that would help him see again. “...Confused, perhaps. aggravated since you cannot understand.”

“Yes, Sherlock. I’m those two.” John folded his arms and turned towards him. “Why would you want to...cuddle with a grown man?”

Quick with the comeback, the immediate response was, “Why would you want to cuddle with a grown woman?”

“Are you trying to tell me something, Sherlock?”

Sherlock sighed and sat up, his hands folding as he rested his chin on his thumbs. “John, do you remember the first night?”

“What the blazes are you talking about?”

“I never meant it, what I said.”

“And what did you say? Remind me again.”

“Relationships, John. I wanted to know if being gay was alright with you.”

For a solid minute, John stared at Sherlock, the movie forgotten. “So... you’re gay.”

“Homosexual, yes. Gay, no.” Sherlock got up. “I apologise if I have insulted you in any way, John.” He started to leave the room.

“Wait, Sherlock!” John got up as well. “Let me talk now.”

Sherlock turned back around, frowning in annoyance. “What is it?”

“I...may not be gay, but I find myself attracted to you. So don’t go running off before I have shit to say.”

“Attracted?”

John pinched his brows together. “Yes, attracted. How else can I clarify?”

Sherlock crossed his arms. “... Let’s get dinner.”

John froze then nodded at the man. “Fine. We’ll get dinner.”

And from the telly, they both heard: “ _If this isn't love, I don't think I can handle the real thing._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Day 4: On a Date


	4. Day 4: Going on a Date

“Sherlock, this doesn’t count as ‘dinner’.”

“No?” Sherlock leaned around the corner, watching Lestrade at a crime scene. “Well, we’ll get there, John.”

“When? You’re just spying on Lestrade now. How are you going to get from that to dinner?”

The detective merely looked at him and turned back to Lestrade as the man knelt down by the body. He watched as the calloused fingers twitched at his pocket, almost grabbing the phone that Sherlock knew was there. He walked right up to them and knelt beside the DI, looking at the body. “Worked at a diner, aged about … 25. Asphyxiation most likely.”

“Sherlock! What are you doing here? I didn't call you!”

“On the way to eat with John, and you looked like you needed aid.”

“Oh cut the bullshit. You heard about this, didn’t you?”

“No, honestly I just saw you here.”

John sighed and joined the two men. “Believe it or not, Lestrade, he’s telling the truth. He’s just being a dick, as usual.”

Lestrade frowned. “I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am.”

Sherlock sighed. “John, tell me what this man suffocated from.”

“Not even a ‘please,’ Sherlock?” The doctor knelt by his...boyfriend? He didn’t know what they were, to be honest.

“John...” he warned.

With a sigh, the doctor leaned over the body, checking his neck then the back of his throat. “No signs of strangulation or forced feeding.” He took a quick whiff of the mouth. “But he smells of ammonia. Perhaps suicide?”

“Suicide in an alley? No, no. This is much bigger. Something a bit more.”

Lestrade sighed impatiently. “A bit more? Sherlock, there’s a man dead. I don’t think you can get ‘a bit more’ than that!”

John shook his head, his patience already worn thin. “Either you know something, or you don’t. This is you, we’re talking about, so I think you know something.”

Sherlock frowned. “Of course I know something, John. This man did not commit suicide. No, it can not be that simple. Nothing is that simple.”

He sighed and stood up. “Then you figure it out.” The doctor had been hoping for a relaxing evening with his...with Sherlock. “I, for one, am hungry. Since you have a case, I guess I’ll be eating by myself.”

“No, I’ll be along in a moment.” Sherlock looked at the man’s hands before getting up. “I’ll be in touch, Lestrade.” He stood and led John down the street, the doctor only following because he hoped that this meant food.

In fact, it did. Sherlock lead him to a nearby diner, and, even though they just looked at a dead man, they washed their hands and sat down to eat. Even Sherlock ordered food, though it wasn’t much.

But John knew something was up. Sherlock had a case to work on, yet the man was eating. “Sherlock...”

The man looked at a forkful of his food. “Yes, John?”

“What’s going on?”

He frowned. “Is this not ok? You wanted to go out to eat.”

“No, this is fine, but what’s going on? You have a case, yet you’re...”

“John, this is the diner the man was working at. I thought we could eat and solve a case at the same time.”

“You think the case will be that simple to solve in a matter of hours?”

Sherlock nodded and took a bite to prove his point.

John sighed with a small smile and a shake of his head before they fell into a few minutes of silence. That silence was broken when Sherlock got up and walked into the back to look for a few things. What, the doctor wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t about to move. He was enjoying himself just sitting there and enjoying a meal. Or he had been until Sherlock left. Was a simple date too much for him to ask, a simple sit-down-and-eat? But after a while, John got up. Sherlock was taking too long, and he wanted to know why.

John walked to the kitchens, frowning as he didn’t see the detective there. He thought that he was over the “leave John behind” nonsense, but Sherlock was leaving him behind again like old times. He sighed and turned around to pay the check. He had just handed the steward his card when he felt the hand on his back.

“John.”

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock! Where the bloody hell did you go?”

“Just around back.” The tall man turned. “Come on. I believe you were right about something.”

“Me? Being right?” John walked with Sherlock as he led the doctor to the back alley.  
“Possibly, yes.”


End file.
